lead me to the rock that is higher than i

Sushi UOmo

[05/28/2015] It was Happy’s birthday last Thursday but she was fully booked last week (pftttt too popular ;D) so we had a late celebration today! She wanted sushi and after doing some research and reading some reviews, I decided to take her to Sushi UOmo. It was a convenient 15 minute bus ride from school and we had an early dismissal today, so it worked out perfectly!

The Restaurant

First off, I apologize for the crappy storefront picture. I was across the street zooming in with my phone. 😛

Anyways, Sushi UOmo is a relatively small shop in the Burnaby Heights area and it wasn’t too busy when we arrived at noon. More and more people arrived as we settled in though. We noticed there was another sushi shop just a couple of stores from here, so there may be some competition.

When we entered, all the staff greeted us, kind of like how they do it in really authentic Japanese retaurants. However, I think this place is run by Chinese people because (a) I heard Mandarin and (b) Happy spotted a Chinese calendar. (We’re super spies! C; ) With that said, the service was great! There were two servers, a guy and a girl and they were both quite attentive. The girl came by often filling our tea cups, while the guy asked us several times how we were enjoying our meal. My request for a window seat was gladly taken and the questions I had were patiently answered too. Happy and I are both horrible at decisions and we took just about forever to order, but we didn’t feel rushed at all!

The Food

Sushi UOmo has a standard Japanese menu with great variety of appetizers, salads, tempura and of course, maki, nigiri, sashimi and combos. They also have entrees such as boxed meals, donburi, katsu, noodles as well as a separate menu of special rolls. There’s many options which I love and hate at the same time, there’s just so much to choose from. 😛 By the way, a lot of the items are vegetarian friendly. (:

First came bowls of complementary miso soup. There was a piece of seaweed, one tiny cube of tofu and some green onions, but hey it’s free so I’m not complaining. xD

After being fascinated by all the different options, we finally decided on two combos, to get a bit of everything.

The Appetizer Sashimi($7.50) came with 7 slices- two of each of sockeye salmon, tuna, hamachi (yellowtail), and a piece of wild salmon. We were very pleased with the portion and quality of the seafood! Living in BC, I always expect fresh salmon, but tuna seems to be a problem for a lot of sushi restaurants. However, the ones here was buttery smooth, but not to the point of mushy. We also enjoyed the hamachi because it’s not something we normally get. All the types of sashimi in this combo were pretty tasty. (4/5)

Next, we had the Deluxe Assorted Sushi Combo ($12.50). This comes with ten pieces of chef’s selected nigiri, and your choice of either a salmon or tuna roll– we chose the salmon. Again, the ingredients here are all very fresh! The nigiri include wild salmon, sake (salmon), tai (seabream), hamachi, ebi (shrimp), tamago (egg), tako (octopus), hokkigai (surf clam), ika (squid), and maguro (tuna). The maki could’ve been rolled a little neater but the rice to filling ratio for the sushi are substantial. My favourite out of the ones I tried was the tako, I just can’t get enough of that chewy goodness. :3 (4/5)

Final Thoughts

With the good food and service, we really did enjoy our lunch here. Plus, I really liked how they incorporated some of the more unique types of fish like hamachi and tai into their combos, it’s just something a little different! If I’m ever in the area again, I would definitely return and perhaps give their special maki or entrees a try too.